


Jorinde and Joringel

by lotesse



Category: Brothers Grimm (2005)
Genre: Fairy Tales, Incest, M/M, Magic, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You said witches liked to kidnap and enchant girls. And yet, this one only seemed to want to enchant you." Written for Yuletide Madness 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jorinde and Joringel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ponderosa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/gifts).



God damn it all, life had been much easier when fairy tales were still made up. Or at least, when he'd thought they were. This real enchantment must always have existed, beyond the range of his blindness.

No matter now. She had Jacob, and Wilhelm was trussed with a spell-tie that he couldn't seem to break.

Even if he could get free, there was nothing he could do. His brother wasn't even human any more.

They'd only been trying to cut through the wood, to find lodging and work and food enough to hold body and soul together. And then her house had come rising up out of nowhere, and he'd been rooted by her spell, and she'd walked close to them. Bent and old and toothless, wrapped in a glittering cloak of a thousand small bright feathers, and she'd reached out a gnarled finger to trace Jacob's cheek. Anger flared through Will - Jake was his to touch, and his only - and he'd struggled against the spell, but to no avail. Jacob had trembled and fluttered at her touch, and then dwindled, and darkened, and soon there was nothing left of him but a little brown bird, clutched in the witch's fist.

"Will, be careful!" he'd called as the spell took him away moment by moment. His voice was more musical, more tuneful and sweet, and it made Wilhelm shudder. "I will come back to you, Will, I promise" Jacob said as he changed. "Will, don't forget me, I'll try my best to get back to you!" The little bird kept singing, even after the transformation was complete. She'd taken the caged creature away, and Will hadn't been able to move a muscle since.

He stood there until moonset, when the spell seemed to loosen. As soon as he could, Will dove for Jacob's pack, lying dropped by the wayside. The scent of his brother's clothes nearly undid him - if he couldn't get Jacob back, if he couldn't end the transformation, if - and then he found the journal. Transformation spells, he thought as he rifled through it. What did Jacob have written down?

Later, when he stormed into the witch's hall with a bunch of red flowers, dripping with pearly dew, Will took deep satisfaction in the witch's howls and yells. "My brother," he shouted, waving his garlands in what he hoped was a suitably threatening manner. "Where is my brother?"

"Oh,";'[ she whined, cowering, "Oh oh oh, can't I keep just him? Just the one? Such a pretty little morsel, such a sweet sad bird, if I only had that one I should be content."

Will stopped hearing her after that, because he could see Jacob swinging in a cage over one of the windows. The brown bird had just the right look of disheveled curiosity mingled with stubbornness to be his hapless little brother. And when it saw Will looking at it, it began to sing.

He opened the cage and touched the garland up against the bird's wings, and then Jacob sat down hard on the dirty ground. Completely naked. And smiling.

"Ooph, Will," he said, "oh, I can talk again."

Wilhelm might have held on to Jacob a little longer than necessary as he picked him up, and he might have deeply relished the long soft planes of Jake's body under his hands, but what he said was, "Heaven's sake, Jacob, you'll never stop talking now, will you?"

And as they bound the witch together, dropping the enchanted dew on her, Jacob might have smiled more widely than was usual, and he might have accidentally brushed his fingers against Will's body with a frequency that belied the "accidental" part, but what he said was, "I don't know why you mind it, brother, considering that I keep on saving our skins. I did tell you that there were witches in the deep wood, I did tell you."

They left the witch struggling against the flowers, which made her howl and curse. Outside her house it was high afternoon, sun slanting down in gold streaks. Jacob was still mostly naked - Will had given him his coat, but it scarcely covered Jake's thighs, and of his own lost attire there had been no sign.

There were birds singing above them as they walked, but Wilhelm didn't mind them so long as he could still hear Jacob chattering away.

"Yes, Jake," he said with an eyeroll, "and you also told me that they liked to kidnap and enchant girls. I know you did, because you also wrote it down in that book. And yet, this one only seemed to want to enchant you. So what does that make you exactly?"

Jacob just smiled, and leaning over pressed a gentle kiss against Will's mouth. "I think, Will," he said quietly, "that it makes me your ladylove."

Not nearly as gently, Will kissed him back, and Jacob quickly ended up breathless and flushed, his bare body pressed down into the soft leafmold. "Jacob," Will panted between kisses, "I'm okay with that, actually."


End file.
